My Exclusive Interview with Tom Coburn

Ok, so it’s not MY exclusive interview as much as it is John King’s from CNN. I’m not even sure it was exclusive. Hey, I at least got the “…with Tom Coburn” part right. You have to at least give me that.

Besides, this is the same Tom Coburn who I consider the godfather of the “Shut Up and Govern” Republicans. Whenever I get that look of distain from a closed minded and intolerant liberal who want to know how I can be “one of those people” who believe in things like torture and Jesus, Coburn is one of the guys I point to as a serious cat who is in DC to deal with serious issues.

Most recently, wanting to amend the President’s financial reform bill (that doesn’t really reform) so that there’s more transparency in how and when our tax dollars are being spent. So sayeth Dr. No…

You know John, 94 percent of everything the Senate passed, 93 in one Congress, 94 percent in this we passed without a vote without amendments. A lot of that is inconsequential, but there’s a lot of consequential stuff that gets passed where the American people don’t know it’s passed. There’s no debate on it. There’s no information. It’s not listed. The costs of it aren’t listed. Where the funds are going to come to pay for it aren’t listed and I think that ought to be transparent for the American people. They ought to be able to see it. They ought to have time to digest it. They ought to have time to try to influence us, their elected representatives and how we vote for that. And yet the vast majority of what we pass does not come to light in a way that would give the average American citizen input into that process…

But you know we’re in a process now where the American people are really awakened to what Washington is doing because the time period is so critical in our history. Not just for us but for our kids and grandkids, especially our grandkids, the amount of debt and the obligations that we’re going to be leaving them. The American people are keyed in.

And so they want to take a more active interest. And it should be there and be available to them so that they can make a decision about whether — make a judgment about whether we were right or wrong. And they love reading some of these bills online. They love to see. They want to know what it’s going to cost and they want to make a decision themselves on whether it’s a priority or not.

Definitely check out the entire interview, because he also goes into terror trials, judges, and Gen. McChrystal.